When packaging hazardous products, such as medicaments, syringes, needles, scalpels and razor blades it is of importance to keep the product, both before and after usage, safely stored.
There are today many child resistant packages, especially child resistant pharmaceutical packages, which prevent a child from easy accessing a product. WO2006/068602 A1 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,511,665 discloses two different kind of child resistant pharmaceutical packages. The design of these packages makes it very difficult for children to open it and makes it possible to safely store the product before usage.
However, it is also important to safely store any remains of a used product or products no longer suitable for use, for example used needles or expired medicaments. There are today several packages or containers for safe storage of used needles, one example is disclosed in EP 1447109.
EP 1447109 discloses a medical waste disposal container comprising a hollow container portion and a top cover that is securable to an upper region of said container portion by a snap-fitting arrangement. The upper region of the hollow container is provided with an opening through which waste is received and the top cover includes an inlet through which waste can be inserted for passage to the opening.
The container described in EP 1447109 is adapted for storage of quite a large quantity of needles. These kinds of containers are often placed in hospitals or medical centers for safe storage of used needles.
However, many patients self inject their medicament at home, for example diabetic or cancer patients. For these patients, the present available large containers for storage are impractical. Also, when the patient is traveling or at work it is not a practical solution. It would also be good if the disposable product could be sent by mail to a destination for final disposal, for example to a pharmacy. This is especially suitably for medicaments that have expired, i.e. their best-before date has passed. Instead of leaving the medicaments to a pharmacy, a user can put them in a package for safe storage and mail it to, for example a pharmacy, or other destination for final disposal.
There is thus a need for a small and safe package for storage of hazardous disposable products, such as needles and medicaments, which package is suitable for domestic use.